ROCKFORD — An 8-year-old boy who often retrieved garbage cans and mail for an elderly neighbor and borrowed another neighbor’s bike to ride on summer afternoons was stabbed to death early Tuesday morning and found in his driveway.

Jody L. Kossow, 39, the boy’s mother, was charged with first-degree murder as Winnebago County Sheriff’s Police continue to investigate a boy’s slaying that shocked a working-class neighborhood.

“I’ve been crying all night because he was just like one of mine,” said Tauhidah El-Amin, a 70-year-old woman who neighborhood children call “Granny,” as she wiped away tears. “Am I going to wake up from this (nightmare), or what?”

The boy, Thomas Kossow, attended McIntosh Elementary School and lived in the home with his mother, father and a middle school-age sister, neighbors said.

The family also has grown children, they said.

Neighbor Kevin Jacobson said he awoke before 1 a.m. Tuesday to the mother’s screams outside.

Jacobson looked out the bedroom window to see Rockford Police Department and Winnebago County Sheriff’s Police squad cars rolling to a stop in front of the house across the dead-end in the 200 block of South Woodrow Street just west of Rockford.

“She must have realized what she had done and started screaming,” Jacobson said.

First-arriving deputies found a screaming woman with the dead boy and a kitchen knife in the driveway of a tan and beige single-story home, Winnebago County Deputy Chief Dominic Iasparro said.

An autopsy conducted Tuesday morning by the Winnebago County Coroner’s Office confirmed Thomas was killed by stab wounds. The knife was seized as evidence along with other items.

Detectives documented and photographed the scene. They interviewed family members, spoke with neighbors and school personnel and are seeking medical information.

“We are trying to obtain as much information as we can as far as the family history, family background and background of the mother,” Iasparro said. “We’re talking to neighbors, relatives, schools, medical records, and collecting everything we can possibly obtain. Detectives are fanned out doing all of that.”

The family is believed to have rented the house for about a year. Other family members were inside the home.

Neighbor Donald Hall said the street he shared with Thomas’ family is a quiet place just west of Rockford where there is rarely any trouble. Although the boy was an outgoing 8-year-old, Hall said, family members were quiet and weren’t the type to chat with neighbors.

Kossow often kept her face hidden beneath a hooded sweatshirt and glasses as she walked her son to the school bus stop most mornings.

“When she spoke to others, she seemed off the wall,” Hall said. “He was a nice kid — a typical young, 8-year-old boy.”